The website is run by political strategist Dan Lewis. When Lewis takes his time and effort to establish a website, I pay attention. After roughly three decades in Broward politics building a wide range of political, business and community contacts, he is generally on target.

The latest report on the website is stunner.

It says a contract for on-call services for an Ear-Nose & Throat (ENT) specialist cut from seven physicians to one because of a petty fight between the Governing Board Chairman and the former holder of the contract, Dr. Richard Callari

(The chair of the governor-appointed governing board goes unnamed on the website. The current chair is Republican political insider David Di Pietro.)

The website goes on to say that Sara Howley Callari, long time Broward Health spokeswoman who worked for the hospital system 17 years, became collateral damage to the feud between her physician husband, the chair (Di Pietro?) and the hospitals new CEO Nabil El Sanadi.

Sara Howley before leaving Broward Health last month.

“It is generally believed that she was forced out with a resign or be fired mandate from Dr. El Sanadi on ‘instructions’ from the Chair. Very tacky,” states the Broward Health blog.

The loss of Howley is unfortunate.

I was covering the health system for the Sun-Sentinel when Howley helped change its name: The tongue-tying moniker North Broward Hospital District became the marketing-friendly Broward Health.

I found Howley a super spokeswoman who was always mindful of the media’s needs and deadlines.

But Howley’s departure is not the worst disclosure I found in Lewis’ blog. Perhaps the most disturbing revelation is this:

“The Board Chair…. routinely represents physicians legally and “recuses” himself from votes regularly,” according to the blog.

Really.

Couldn’t the governor find somebody to appoint to the Board who wasn’t involved in the business of the hospitals?

To me, the appointment of Di Pietro smells like it isn’t for public health reasons. It smells like payback for his help for Republican candidates.

This is nothing new. Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles appointed the late Century Village of Deerfield Beach political boss Amadeo “Tinchi” Trinchitella to the governing board. The hospital system quickly built a health clinic inside the condo complex, which was filled with Democratic voters.

Maybe its time to shut down the public hospital system and pay private hospitals to treat the poor?

Because as long as the governing board of the public hospitals is appointed by the governor, the health care system will be political honeypot.

“How would I know what the minimum wage should be? I mean, the private sector decides wages.” Governor Rick Scott

Actually, he’s wrong. The States’ and the Federal Government set the minimum wage and not the private sector.

But we have to forgive Scott’s ignorance, since his income last year was $712,780, that’s $343.68 an hour or 50 times the minimum wage, so I doubt he thinks much about what the current minimum wage should be set at.

The President, however, in his recent State of the Union address, said he wants a minimum wage of $10.10 an hour. The Republicans in the House Chamber could be seen smirking by such a suggestion. After all, the conservative mantra is that increasing the minimum wage equals job loss and hurts low-skilled workers, the very people we are trying to help. And, don’t forget, it also hurts corporate America’s profits as well.

Over the past several weeks, I have reviewed much of the academic literature on how increasing the minimum wage affects low-wage workers, and although the evidence varies depending on the type of analysis, the bulk of it suggests that there is little or no employment reaction to modest increases in the minimum wage, even for employers with a large share of low-wage workers[i].

The most influential of these studies concentrate on the low-wage, low-skilled workers, for the obvious reason that a dollar increase in the minimum wage will have little impact on the skilled worker making a $100,000 a year salary. Minimum wage workers are generally younger, less skilled and educated and consequently, more dependent on hourly wage industries.[ii]

On November 2, 2004, Florida voters approved a Constitutional amendment that increased the state’s minimum wage to $6.15 per hour, a full dollar higher than the Federal minimum wage at the time. In addition, the amendment required the state to index the minimum wage to inflation which is not the case with the Federal minimum wage. As of January, the state established the new minimum wage adjusted for inflation at $8.05, a full 80 cents above the current Federal minimum wage. In Figure 1, I display Florida’s minimum wage over the past 14 years.

Figure 1

The average difference between the Federal and the State’s is 50 cents, with the highest difference being in the second year of the new law at $1.25. A modest difference, of course, but still high enough that it could affect a low-wage earner’s job where, as one fast-food restaurant executive put it, “every penny matters.”

Florida’s minimum wage law provides a real-life experiment in the potential effects that a raise in the wage has as compared to the current Federal requirement. It also allows for the use state-level data that reflects the regional economic differences that are not revealed in national level data.[iii]

In addition, Florida’s new wage law took effect just before the housing-bubble recession that devastated Florida’s economy for nearly four years. Unemployment in the state rose from 3.3% in 2006 to a high of 11.3% in 2009. To my knowledge, this is the first study on a regional minimum wage impact on low-wage earners during a recession.

As I mentioned above, we would expect that the lowest wage earners to be most affected by any increase in the minimum wage. The lowest wage earners are mainly employed in the food preparation and restaurant server positions who do not receive tips. Think of McDonald’s when you order a Big Mac with fries and their employee asks “supersize that for you?” That’s the employee I’m talking about.[iv]

These are the workers who, of course, most need a reasonable minimum wage and the most likely to lose their job if the government raises it, at least according to most conservative economists. It also seems reasonable, that during a recession, these vulnerable workers would be the first to go out the door. Consequently, increasing the minimum wage during a recession should be a double-whammy for these folks hanging on to the bottom rung of the economy.

Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity (Rick Scott’s name for his jobs department) houses a database of economic statistics going back to 1998, including the number of workers in the food preparation/server category who had an average entry wage of $8.47 in 2014, the lowest of all Florida job classifications that do not receive tips.

In that same year, over fifty thousand food preparer workers were in this category, out of over 7.4 million of employed workers in the state. In Figure 2, I show the total number of food preparer jobs in the total Florida workforce since 2004.

Figure 2

So what’s wrong with this graph? Notice that during the recession period (2008-2011) the number of fast-food workers increased instead of decreasing as one would expect. Like some have suggested, the fast-food industry appears to be recession proof.[v] As many Floridians’ lost either their jobs or large parts of their income they ate out less. But, when they did eat out, it was a table for four at McDonalds and not Bistro Mezzaluna.

In reality, fast-food chains did lose profits, but ate (no pun intended) most of their losses, and continued hiring new workers.[vi] To put this industry worker group in perspective, I compare the state’s total unemployment with food preparer’s percentage of jobs in Figure 3.

Figure 3

The black bars represent Florida’s unemployment rate from 2003 through 2013. As you can see, total unemployment reached a peak in 2009, at over 11%. The red line, in contrast, traces the total number of food preparers/servers though the same years. Notice that their numbers grew until they peaked in 2011 at nearly 56,000 workers (correlation .579, sig. <.10).

In plain terms, as people were being laid-off statewide, fast-food chains were hiring new employees and, probably, many from these laid-off workers. Who knew that McDonalds was the state’s unofficial employment bureau? From now on I am going to supersize those fries just to thank them.

Finding that higher unemployment seems to increase jobs for more low-wage food workers is not only unexpected but extraordinary. On the surface it makes some sense, since in recessions people cut back on their more expensive expenditures like fancy restaurants, but when they do decide to eat out its more likely at a fast-food alternative, at least that is the prevailing wisdom.

I couldn’t find any data on Florida’s fast-food sales for this period, but I did find U.S. annual revenues for this industry group. So I compared the national sales with the increase in Florida Fast-Food Jobs. Now I realize that sales in Florida will likely differ from the national data, but the upward or downward direction in revenues should be somewhat similar. As Figure 4 illustrates, it appears that these restaurants do prosper, at least in total sales, during recessions.

Figure 4

The black bars represent the total annual revenues (in billions of dollars) for U.S. fast-food restaurants from 2003 to 2013. The red-line denotes the total number of employees in Florida’s fast-food industry. Except for the last two years (2012-2013), the increasing sales on a national level correspond to increasing employees in Florida, even during the worst recession since the Great Depression. Who knew? (Well I didn’t.)

The point is that fast-food employees prospered in some perverted way (keeping their jobs and a higher minimum wage) while the rest of Florida’s workers suffered with reduced wages or layoffs. Although the recession seems to have increased fast food employment, does it also mean that increasing the minimum wage increased employment?

The simple answer is no. A rise in the minimum wage could be inhibiting this employment category’s growth. In other words, more workers could have been hired during this period if the minimum wage in Florida had not changed at all. The only way to show the true effect of raising the minimum wage on employment is to control for the effects of Florida’s economy (unemployment, GDP, revenues) and the current dollar difference between the Federal and Florida’s minimum wage.

In statistics, the most common way to control for other variables is to use multiple regression (if you ever wondered why you needed to take algebra, just skip ahead). In plain language, we create a model that measures the effects of several predictor variables on the dependent variable, which in this case is the total number of food preparers in Florida.

The great part of this technique is that it allows us to keep constant other predictor variables (such as the economy), so we can see the true effect that an increase in the minimum wage has on fast-food jobs. When we control for unemployment, U.S. fast-food sales, GDP, and finally, the difference between Florida’s and the U.S. minimum wage, we find that only increasing sales has a statistically significant impact on Florida fast-food employment. (See the end-note below for the model statistics)[vii]

In other words, both the state’s unemployment rate and minimum wage differences had no effect on whether fast-food restaurants hired (or fired) employees.

It all comes down to their sales, even during a recession. The model predicts that as national sales increase by one billion dollars, Florida fast-food employees increase by 365 when controlling for the other economic variables.[viii] For our purposes here, however, increasing Florida’s minimum wage didn’t do squat.[ix]

P.S. As I was finishing this article, Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, increased its minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. They also announced that it will be increased to $10.00 an hour next year. For the retail sector, at least, this is a white flag of surrender. How it will affect the fast-food industry remains to be seen.

But as unemployment declines, all businesses will have to react to the changing employment climate that gives employees greater leverage. In the meantime, I’m putting in my application in for a Wal-Mart “greeter” position….

XXXXX

[i] For a good review see “Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No Discernable Effect on Employment,” Schmitt, John, Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2013.

[viii] In regression with multiple independent variables, the coefficient tells you how much the dependent variable is expected to increase when that independent variable increases by one, holding all the other independent variables constant.

[1] In regression with multiple independent variables, the coefficient tells you how much the dependent variable is expected to increase when that independent variable increases by one, holding all the other independent variables constant.

Sometimes it seems that Pembroke Pines Commissioner Angelo Castillo can’t get a break.

Angelo Castillo

For years, Castillo has promoted the expansion of voting by mail.

Is anybody listening?

Apparently not in Tallahassee, where the idea has gone nowhere.

Another 60-day session of Florida’s Legislature starts next week and its about time somebody paid attention to encouraging more voting by mail.

Here are the facts:

Conducting elections exclusively by mail costs less money. No poll watcher training and salaries. No expense to move thousands of machines to polling places.

Pembroke Pines spent $226,523 for a city election in just two districts last year. The bulk of that money would have been saved if the election was conducted by mail.

In addition, many voters love the idea of voting by mail.

It’s convenient. It’s easy.

An increasing number of Florida voters are casting ballots by mail since the Legislature made it easier to vote absentee in the last decade.

In 2012, almost 30 million voters nationwide, better than half of those voting, cast ballots by mail, according to statistics cited by the City of Pembroke Pines.

In 2014, most states allowing widespread voting by mail had a higher turnout.

Colorado had a 53 percent turnout and Oregon had 52 percent, while Florida had a 43.1 percent turnout and the national average was 36.3 percent, the New York Times reported.

(Turnout motivation is hard to gauge, however.

Many factors influence turnout other than the method of voting, including the intensity of the issues, the combativeness of the race and the money spent.

Colorado had a hot 2014 U. S. Senate race and votes by mail. That state did better than Florida, which also had a hot governor’s race. Was the reason that Colorado votes by mail? Without a study taking into account all the variables, voting by mail can not accurately be credited with the higher turnout.

Scientific studies have differed on the effect of voting by mail on turnout.)

Currently, Florida allows only referendums in a special elections to be conducted by mail. Any election where candidates are on the ballot must be held the old way – with voting booths. The existing law can be seen here.

Castillo would expand voting by mail to all elections.

He would leave only a handful of large polling places open – like what occurs during early voting – to accommodate those who wish to vote in person. The rest would be encouraged to vote by mail.

“Vote by mail will increase the number of Floridians voting while reducing elections costs. There can be no better example of a good government best practice. Therefore, on behalf of Florida’s 10th largest city, we in Pembroke Pines call upon you to direct the Secretary of State to begin a serious inquiry into the prospect of bringing Vote by Mail to Florida as our official voting method,” Castillo wrote Gov. Rick Scott on Feb. 2.

Included with his two-page letter was a Pembroke Pines City Commission resolution asking that the city be a pilot city to test the effectiveness of expanded voting by mail.

Scott hasn’t answered.

Okay, Scott may not be interested. What about our local legislators?

There is no doubt voting by mail saves money. Isn’t saving money a Republican and Democratic goal?

You wouldn’t have an Overeaters Anonymous meeting in front of the buffet at Golden Corral. And I am pretty sure a Grateful Dead concert is not the place to bring people for a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

It therefore follows that you would not treat mental illness at a gun range.

Yet, that is precisely what American Sniper Chris Kyle and his buddy Chad Littlefield did… with predictable results.

Eddie Ray Routh, who was just convicted of their murders, was severely disturbed. He was suffering from PTSD and being medicated with drugs reserved for schizophrenics and other psychotics.

Rather than medication and the therapist’s couch, Kyle and Littlefield thought that a loaded gun and target practice was the appropriate treatment.

And there is little doubt they knew he was mentally ill.

Just before arriving at the gun range, Kyle texted Littlefield: “This dude is straight up nuts. Watch my 6.” That’s military talk for “watch my back.”

Nevertheless, Kyle blithely handed his personal handgun to Routh who proceeded to kill both of them. Why? Because, as he later explained to the police, on the drive over to the range, “they wouldn’t talk to him”. In Eddie Routh’s twisted world that countenanced justifiable homicide.

If, instead of killing Kyle and Littlefield, Routh had killed innocent bystanders, any prosecutor worth his salt would have charged them with Second Degree murder also known as “Depraved Indifference”.

It was like handing the car keys to a staggering drunk who then runs a red light and kills a couple of pedestrians in the crosswalk.

No one should be surprised at the results. The law will not tolerate either behavior.

If Kyle had been arrested, that would have certainly changed the script on “American Sniper”.

I’ve got more to write about this but I must cut it short. I don’t want to miss my A.A. meeting at Maguires Hill 16 Irish Pub.

In a move designed to strengthen neighborhoods, state Rep. Katie Edwards is sponsoring a bill which would change the way fees and taxes were handled in foreclosures.

State Rep. Katie Edwards

Under current law, home and condo owners are responsible for the association fees and property taxes. But owners are already in financial difficulty during a foreclosure and often don’t pay the fees and taxes.

Edwards’ bill would require lenders pursuing foreclosure to take on the financial responsibilities for the fees and taxes.

The bill would speed foreclosures and allow associations to collect needed fees, the Plantation Democrat said.

She said the current law has the effect of “negatively impact associations’ ability to comply with state-mandated fiscal requirements and undermining the delivery of services critical to the upkeep, repair and safety of Florida’s associations….

“Roughly 21 percent of foreclosed properties sit vacant for years while lenders avoid paying taxes and maintenance assessments by delaying the taking of the title to the property. This is bad for Florida and my bill aims to stop it.”

Florida is third in the nation for the longest foreclosure times – an average of 944 days to complete.

The bill has a shot because it is Edwards who filed it. She works with Republicans and this one has a Senate companion filed by state Sen. Alex Bean, R-Jacksonville.

I can’t think of a worse candidate the Democrats could choose to capture the seat now held by U. S. Sen. Marco Rubio.

Her TV image as the ultra-partisan chair of the Democratic National Committee can’t possibly help her with independents and crossover Republicans.

She is divisive and frankly often comes across as angry and hectoring.

She is a liberal. When is the last time a liberal got elected U. S. Senator from Florida? Would the answer be “never?”

She is Jewish. When is the last time a Jewish politician got elected statewide?

And she isn’t only divisive among non-Democrats. A number of key Broward Democrats don’t like the Weston resident.

Just look at the comment on Facebook Feb. 24 by another Democrat from the progressive wing of the party, Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter. She dropped an attack aimed at Wasserman Schultz, whom she identifies as A Jewish DNC Chair, into a discussion of Israel.

Ritter isn’t alone, believe me.

Any Wasserman Schultz campaign for Senate has about as much chance as Nan Rich’s campaign for governor last year. You know how that ended up.

The earliest of early birds running for Circuit Court in 2016 is Thomas Michael Lynch V, son of Circuit Judge Tom Lynch IV.

Lynch has been quietly running for Circuit Court since Dec. 12. He is currently working at Gold and Associates, more commonly known as the Ticket Clinic, a traffic offense and criminal defense firm.

Among those already coughing over cash for Lynch’s campaign are former Judge Jay Spechler and his wife ($2,000) and Republican political insider David DiPietro ($1,000). Lynch has raised $11,950.

The second candidate to open his campaign is Jason Allen Rosner. He filed papers on Feb. 9 for Circuit Court.

Rosner’s name will be familiar to those who follow judicial races. He lost a three-way race for Circuit Court to Judge John Fry in 2010.

With a general law practice heavy on criminal defense, Rosner also has been a civic traffic hearing officer since 2012.

Rosner is running for the seat of Judge Susan Lebow, who is retiring. Lynch wants to take over the division now held by Judge John Luzzo, also retiring.

Within weeks, other lawyers seeking the bench will join Lynch and Rosner. There could be more than a dozen lawyers running in 2016.

Several female lawyers have been talking to other attorneys about running. A few lawyers now working for the Public Defenders or State Attorney’s Office also have made noise about trying to a seat.

And the candidates will possibly include former Judge Ian Richards. He got beaten when he ran for re-election last year.

There is expected to be at least four open seats. There are also several judges who were appointed by Gov. Rick Scott who will face challenges.

So will early birds Lynch and Rosner have an advantage? Probably not.

A lawyer could jump into either of those Circuit Court races as late as Christmas with $400,000 and immediately have an advantage.

Stay tuned.

]]>http://www.browardbeat.com/rush-begins-to-grab-a-seat-on-the-court/feed/15GOP Goes To Bat For One Of Its Ownhttp://www.browardbeat.com/gop-goes-to-bat-for-one-of-its-own/
http://www.browardbeat.com/gop-goes-to-bat-for-one-of-its-own/#commentsThu, 19 Feb 2015 17:01:37 +0000http://www.browardbeat.com/?p=29337

The calls featuring the voice of Bob Sutton, the party’s vice chair, exhorting Republicans to vote for “the only Republican in the race” — Petrocelli.

Rico Petrocelli

Sutton mentioned that Petrocelli was not just any Republican, but a former executive director of the Broward GOP.

Besides the robocall, the GOP is mailing flyers backing Petrocelli.

Meanwhile, four Democratic candidates are stumbling around fighting each other. There is a good chance that the Democrats will divide the anti-Petrocelli vote and the Republican will win.

Another looming problem for Democrats: Mayor Diane Veltri-Bendekovic, a Democrat, could also lose her re-election to Republican Jerry Fadgen, a Republican. Several observers say the chances of a Fadgen win are 50-50.

Losing either the commission or mayor’s seat would be a setback for the local Democratic Party. Losing both would be a disaster magnified by the fact that Democratic Chair Mitch Ceasarand Democratic First Vice Chair Cynthia Busch live in Plantation.

I’ve got to laugh about one element in the Republican’s campaign for Petrocelli.

I have heard for decades Broward Republicans whining that local Democrats are like sheep. Democrats will vote for any candidate with a D next to their name, the Republicans complain.

The Petrocelli campaign proves that Republicans are very willing to use the same tactics they denounce Democrats for using. They are asking GOP voters to vote for Petrocelli solely because he is a Republican.

When she was a teenager in Philadelphia of the 1930s, her father told her that college was for her brothers and not her.

Boys and not young women.

“My father said he was supporting (my two brothers) in medical school and I was forget about that and get married,” Keiser recalls.

But Keiser defied her dad and on her own got money to go to Temple University. She ended up with a bachelors in Medical Technology, opened her own medical lab and eventually moved to Florida to co-found what is now known as Keiser University.

Evelyn Keiser

Today, the school has roughly 16,000 students studying at around 20 campuses, including overseas. It also has a vigorous online program

Thousands of Keiser students have graduated to jobs in medicine, law enforcement, business and many others fields.

It is quite an achievement for Keiser, who was once told education was for her brothers and not her.

Next month, Gov. Rick Scott will recognize Keiser’s role in education.

The 91-year-old educator will be inducted into the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame. Her name will be displayed in the lobby of the state Capitol along with such earlier inductees as civil rights leader Mary Bethune, musician Gloria Estefan and South Florida pioneer Julia Tuttle.

It has been a long journey from her birth in 1924 to the wall of the Capitol.

Born Evelyn Cahn, she always excelled in school. Seeking a challenge and following her interests, she entered a tough field for women after college – medical technology. It was a male dominated field then.

Her husband, a physician, entered the military during World War II. Using her degree, she was employed in several hospitals and medical labs.

After the war, she opened her own medical lab, which was revolutionary for a woman at the time. She operated it for a dozen years. Then she sold it and she began teaching medical sciences.

In 1961, the family moved to Florida because, she says, “My husband wanted to play tennis every day.”

She taught medical science courses at a higher ed level.

In 1977, Evelyn was comparing notes with her son Art Keiser. They were both in college working towards Master’s degrees.

The way she recalls it:

“We were having dinner one night when Art said. ‘How do you like your program?’ I said I didn’t because nobody at the school seemed to care.

“He said, ‘I think we can do better.’

“The next thing I know there is this application in the mail from the state. It was a huge application (to start a school).”

Evelyn Keiser, who was in her fifties at the time, questioned whether she should or could attempt to start a new college.

Art was insistent. “He said, ‘You can do it, Mom.’”

Keiser School opened shortly afterward on Oakland Park Boulevard with one classroom. Evelyn was in charge of the medical science courses.

Terry Avitable was the first student. Her career has proved Keiser University’s value to the students.

After a lengthy career as a registered nurse and working in corporate sales, Avitable returned to Keiser to help establish the school’s associate in science nursing program. She remains employed at the school.

Keiser School eventually became Keiser College and in 2006, Keiser University. Her son, Art, is the chancellor.

The school today offers dozens of programs with the most popular being Business Administration and Management, followed by Criminal Justice.

The secret of Keiser U’s success?

“(Teachers) do care at the schools we started,” Keiser says. “We care. We care for our students. Students are number one.”

And a fact that is particularly fitting for a new inductee to the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame: Approximately 68 percent of Keiser’s students are women.